Yuri Polakiwsky, Director Peter Evanchuck, Marko Polakiwsky, Henry Schmidt and Compton Eefreitas at the University of Toronto's Hart House for the 2013 MINDFESTEVANCHUCK's documentary MARKO'sMANIA screened on opening day of the Mental Health Conference to an appreciative audience. MARKO's candid honesty created a personal, heart-felt documentof a life lived with bi-polar illness. MARKO'sMANIA records 14 years of his life in 21 minutes.

Tuesday, 4 June 2013

Through lighthearted self-reflection, Marko paints an honest picture of what it is like to live under the label of bi-polar depression and how his passion for photography has seen him through the damaging stigma and heavy prescription medication.

PETER EVANCHUCK has a very strong viewpoint on
video/film-makers. 'To all those filmmakers who call themselves
'filmmakers' I'd say if you make films/videos you have to be involved in
all aspects of the process before you earn that title; otherwise,
you're just a director or camerman or editor. I do think that those of
us who really want to show the world our viewpoint on a particular
subject/story have to learn all aspects of documentary video/filmmaking.
If the 'maker' doesn't shoot and edit his project they loose vital
parts of the process that will show their unique point of view. This is
especially true when it comes to docs that are not factory
structured/designed but those docs that allow the reality of the
subject/location to allow the maker to 'feel' his subject. I never
pre-structure my own docs. I always know my subject, have to some
degree, lived my subject. Taking the time, making the effort to learn
all that, allows the 'maker' the uniqueness of 'voice' that can never
come with pre-structured designs of docs. I never have meetings 'cause
I'd be the only person at that meeting since my crew is 'a crew of
ONE'.... me.'

PS:
When Richard Leiterman was shooting A MARRIED COUPLE with his Elcair
NPR for Alan King, he made that movie as much as King made it, in that
he took over that first stage of putting the subject on film ... King
directed/shot nothing; he was never there for more than a few moments.
King would go on to make the movie in the editing room with Richard's
footage and there was lots of it - Richard should have been given
credit as co-director since he shot it ... right?